Austro-Daimler Maja 1908

After Emil Jellinek, businessman and diplomat, founded the Mercedes Electric Company named after his daughter, he created the MAJA car named after his second daughter and got Porsche across to Daimler in Vienna Neustadt in September 1906 to help with its design.Just 6 months later on 28th February 1907, the first model was put on display in the Vienna Automobile Exhibition: It was a Daimler MAJA with the first petrol motor construction by Ferdinand Porsche. The rear wheels were still powered by gears via chains.

150 MAJA cars had been built for Emil Jellinek that couldn’t be sold because of gear problems and had ultimately led to Jellinek’s exit from Austro Daimler in Vienna Neustadt
So at this exhibition it was the new Austro-Daimler boss, Ferdinand Porsche, who was introduced to Archduke Leopold Salvator, one of the emperor’s cousins responsible for the motorisation of the Austro-Hungarian imperial troops. Porsche and Eduard Fischer overhauled the Daimler MAJA and created the Austro Daimler AD 28/32. Cerny, a carriage builder, supplied the bodywork for Duke Leopold Salvator’s vehicle in 1908.